They Cloned Tyrone: An Outlandish and Irrational Comedy (review)

For his first production, Juel Taylor offers Netflix a crazy comedy paying homage to the blaxploitation of the 70s.

After scripting Creed II And Space Jam: New Era, Juel Taylor embarks on its very first production with They cloned Tyronereleased this Friday on netflix. Here, everything rests on an unlikely trio of investigative agents: first, Fontaine, an experienced drug dealer, whom the rebel of Star Wars John Boyega brilliantly embodies. Alongside her is Yo-Yo, a prostitute with fallen journalism dreams, played by Teyonah Parris (Dear White People). And then a proudly proclaimed mac “best pimp of the year 1995” played by the hilarious Jamie Foxx. Together, they will discover a huge conspiracy in their neighborhood, including a secret laboratory manufacturing clones en masse. At the heart of this plot, a series of discoveries will quickly leave the trio completely overwhelmed by events.

We too, we sometimes get lost in the middle of all these scriptwriting ramblings, which we forgive becauseThey cloned Tyrone is above all an enormous incredible comedy. The least we can say is that the screenwriters (Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier) let loose to concoct a completely crazy story, and filled with anachronisms reinforcing the absurdity of the project. So don’t be surprised to see our three heroes driving around in a 70s car, flip phone in hand, chatting about 9/11, bumping into a CD salesman and coming home to watch a show on a 90s TV.

In the background, the film attempts a denunciatory approach to American society: from the ghettoization of certain popular neighborhoods, to the mass arrival of junk food, not to mention police violence and systemic racism. They cloned Tyroneit is a bit like get out met The Truman Showslightly mixed with an endless day, not to mention a few references to sci-fi movies of the 50s. Again, that’s a lot. But in the end, isn’t this the bias of this extravagant and irrational film by nature?

Finally, the feature film inherits a controlled aesthetic from the seventies, which pays homage to the arrival of blaxploitation, this movement having given the black-American community its first heroes of cinema, far from the caricatural roles that they were entrusted with until then – the dealer-mac-prostitute trio also wants to regroup and go beyond the clichés of the genre. With all this, remains a mystery that weighs throughout the viewing: but who the hell is Tyrone? And that is a very good question…

They cloned Tyrone is already available on Netflix.